Henkan
by LadyTaiyo
Summary: The planet sends Aerith back without a word of explanation. Discontent with the life she has made in a quiet little town she struggles to accept an existence without purpose. Then He turns up. Summary is atrocious, plot is infinitely more exciting.
1. Obscurity

**_I never thought I would write something like this, but I discovered the wonder that is Final Fantasy 7 and immediately got attacked by plot bunnies. Not surprising, did you know that Wikipedia refers to Sephiroth as the "Patron Saint of Fan Fiction"? I swear it's true, go look it up._**

**_I do not own Final Fantasy 7._**

**_The song for this chapter is "Paint it Black" by The Rolling Stones._**

**_ Henkan_**

**__****Chapter 1: Obscurity**

* * *

Aerith Gainsborough shut the door of her apartment with a deft little click and blinked her eyes against the brilliant sunlight that flooded her balcony.

Her ears were immediately met with the crashing of waves and she spared but a glance to the sea cliffs her home overlooked. Intent upon getting down to the market sector of the city before it got overly crowded with people as it did inevitably every day beginning around ten in the morning or so. She took the steps that lead to the ground floor two at a time, enjoying the minute falling sensation that came with every step forward. Today she had woken full of purpose, restless energy that needed to be expended.

In her head she ran over the list of things that she needed to buy. The obvious necessities, then whatever seasonal fruits and vegetables were available, and perhaps some more frivolous shopping if there was any money left over.

She had a job with a local herb saleswoman, an elderly lady named Anika. The hours were reasonable and the pay was decent, it was more than she could say for most of the jobs she had held in the past. Anika had even given her Wednesdays and Saturdays off, saying that the middle of the week was really too slow to warrant an extra person coming in.

It wasn't terribly exciting work and in fact it grew downright boring more often than not. Every day it was the same routine, she would be lying if she said it was a satisfying way to live but at the very least she was trying to carve out some kind of existence for herself.

On the weekend she shared her duties with Anika's granddaughter Tiana. The other young woman would have been around to help more,having a very close relationship with her grandmother, but she was currently in training to become a technological engineer at some prestigious institution.

Aerith marveled at the sheer amount of time Tianna spent studying, having never attended any type of conventional school. She had always tried to educate herself to the best of her ability, and had studied under a good number of tutors. It had always been to risky to for her to be enrolled in a public educational system. All students were put into a central data base, one that would be all too easy for Shinra to access. They would have tracked her down and dragged her back in a heartbeat.

She wondered if they would have plucked her straight out of her class room, not caring who saw, or if they would have been more discreet and taken her from her bed at night.

Not one to wallow in self pity she quickly banished her dark speculations, telling herself that there was no way she would be discovered now. Unlike many more up to date employers, who used electronic paychecks, Anika payed her with straight, untraceable gill. Just as she payed her land lord, in nothing but a portion of the shiny silver coins she received each month.

Perhaps she was being a tad paranoid, after all most of shinra had been disbanded, and with their limited man power she doubted much, if any, of their resources would be wasted on her. She was hardly at the top of their "most wanted" list. And besides…

Who would bother to search for a dead girl?

The thought cheered her, perhaps more than it should have and by the time she reached the markets she had cast her worries aside. In fact she was actually somewhat enjoying her day off.

This was not to say that she typically allowed herself to walk around consumed by misery. But everything she had experienced had changed her, irrevocably.

She tried, really, truly, tried, to see the good in the world. She had tried to revive the person she had been before she had ever heard of AVALANCHE, or SOLDIER or Jenova.

She could not succeed, to do that would be to turn back the clock, to erase the last eight years of her existence, it was simply impossible. Gone was the girl who had laughed giddily when a tall, blue eyed boy fell from the sky.

She would not call herself bitter, though she knew she sometimes verged upon it. She was merely…

…Sobered...

That was the best way to describe it. Before she had been drunk on life before,viewing all of existence as pure, white, and beautiful. At one point she had truly been the embodiment of light, the very antithesis to the darkness that threatened her home.

Now she saw the world for what it was, a endless number of shades of gray. She had grown up.

She smiled in satisfaction as she tread the path that lead back up the hill to her apartment,examining her haul. She was definitely getting better at stretching her money.

She struggled with her numerous shopping bags on the stairs a bit and simply gave up and set her purchases down temporarily after fumbling with the door lock for several minutes longer than anyone would deem reasonable. Finally she pushed into her modest home and closed the door behind her.

As she moved about the kitchen putting her groceries away, Aerith surveyed her apartment. It wasn't much.

The whole building was new and the land lord had proudly informed her that she was the first person ever to rent her particular flat. The carpets were new, the paint was fresh, and thanks to her almost obsessive cleaning habits no bug had ever stepped foot over her threshold, small blessings.

The kitchen housed a refrigerator, a stove, and a sink, as well as a small expanse of counter space and a few cabinets. There was a small pale wooden table shoved into one corner, complete with a pair of matching chairs that had come with it.

To her immediate right was her foyer, which truly consisted of nothing more than a cheap, plastic "welcome" mat, and a small tiled area, no more than a square meter, that interrupted the blue patterned carpet.

Beyond that lay her living room. A large window took up most of the wall that faced the ocean and it provided a rather nice view of the surrounding shoreline and sea cliffs. On the far wall was a large, rather plush, and very unsightly couch and a dark, slightly banged up coffee table. Opposite them sat a small television set. All of these things she had bartered for, not having the funds to buy brand new furniture. They were not very modern or very stylish but they were functional and that was what mattered.

Her bedroom was nothing too spectacular or too awful. It contained a queen sized bed with pale jade colored bedding, a night stand with a lamp and alarm clock on it, and a closet. There was a tiny balcony out a sliding glass door that also overlooked the ocean and she knew that she should have been grateful that the designers had at least tried to make it nice, but in all honesty the attempt at ambience was a little sad. The adjoining bathroom was as cramped as the rest of the residence and held all of the things one might expect a bathroom to. A shiny white toilet and a corresponding sink housed by a counter even more miniscule than the one in the kitchen and a cabinet for storing toiletries. Across the room, synonymous with not even a meter, was a shower with an ugly curtain, so-so water pressure, and a tub.

It was to there that she went, once her food for the week had been properly attended to.

She stood and examined her refection in the mirror above the sink. In her humble opinion she looked awful. Her face had been thinned, by her previous strife or by her new lifestyle she didn't know, but the once almost childishly soft oval had waned and sharpened to the point of looking a little harsh, particularly in the wrong lighting. Her hair was pinned in a loose bun on top of her head, bushy and uncooperative as ever, and the utilitarian style certainly didn't do it any favors. Her nose and mouth were so painfully plain and non-descript she didn't even want to think about it and her eyes looked dull and flat.

Why couldn't she be more like Tifa or Yuffie? Her friends were dazzling, both pretty, athletic, and about the nicest people one could ever hope to meet on top of that. She would never be so petty as to envy them, but that didn't stop her feeling like their ugly shadow at times. Even Cloud and Vincent attracted a fair amount of attention under the right circumstances.

Unbidden her mind drew up images of the different mako eyes she had seen. Zack's lovely sky blue, so expressive, he could persuade anyone to adore him with a single look. Cloud's curiously multi-toned turquoise, a million facets of color that sparkled in the sun, they drew a person in, invited them to come and examine more closely._ What she would give to look like them_, Aerith shook her head.

Before she could stop it, one final image conjured itself. One last gaze from a pair of eyes set at a dramatically exotic angle, an inhuman slit of a pupil that put the finishing touch on a vicious expression, irises that were such a brilliant emerald it looked like they had a live wire run through them. The scar on her abdomen ached.

She shuddered and turned away, on second thought, if _that_ was the price of beauty she could be quite content with her own boring face.

Somewhat at a loss for what to do with the rest of her day, she returned to the living room and flicked on the tv.

The news was running images of a building that looked like it had been some kind of lab facility, but was now thoroughly demolished. The screen cut to an image of a lady holding a microphone in front of the still smoking wreckage. Aerith grabbed the remote off of the coffee table and cranked the volume up.

_"For those of you who just tuned in, I am standing in front of what used to be the energy company, Shinra's ,main research facility,until late last night when the structure imploded without warning. Engineers have examined the remains and determined that the building was in fact sound. At the moment they believe that a sudden disturbance to one of the facility's large underground stabilizing columns was the cause of the collapse. As of now no one has any idea who or what could have damaged the pillars. Forty one people were killed when the concrete outer walls caved in. In a moment we will take to join Hiro who is currently live with the head of Shinra's research and development department, Doctor Hojo"._

The scene changed again and showed a tall, rather exaggeratedly muscled blonde man standing beside a sallow, little dark haired man in a lab coat, who would have looked far more at home in a horror movie. There was just something about the man that screamed "shifty". The male reporter was paying no mind to the looks the scientist was shooting him and enthusiastically shoved a microphone in his face.

_"Hello," _the man called Hojo said curtly in a rattling, nasal, tenor.

_"Why hello there, Mr. Head of Research and Development. Now you're quite the renowned scientist, right?"_, the taller man asked, oozing bravado.

The scientist looked as though he wanted to rip the reporter's head off of his shoulders for addressing him in such a manner, _"That's correct",_ he replied stiffly.

The report asked the scientist if he had any guesses at the cause of the destruction of his facility and Hojo looked distinctly uncomfortable for a moment before launching in to a deeply scientific explanation that made absolutely no sense to Aerith, she could only hope that Tiana would see the interview so she could explain it to her.

She setteled herself into a more comfortable position on the sofa and huffed boredly as she waited for the endless onslaught of terms that meant nothing to her to end. She was becoming quite sorely tempted to change the channel when the station mercifully cut to the site where a team of grunts were digging through the wreckage. The camera lens focused itself for a moment and the image became clear in time for her to see a team of four men carrying a rock that was splattered with blood and an oozing a green substance she identified as liquid mako. She shuddered and took a moment to mourn whomever had bled to death upon that piece of stone. In the background the female reporter was explaining how it would be taken to a separate lab and handed over to forensic analyst who could deduce the identity of the victim simply by running the blood through a database. At least that much she was able to grasp, Aerith thought dryly.

The woman has halfway through what Aerith was certain was intended to be a very moving minute of silence for those lost when one of the work man began shouting in the background. The reporter's expression became quite nasty and she began to round angrily upon the man, but stopped when she saw he had something in his possession and was waving it through the air in his chubby hand frantically.

The reporter was on the excavation worker faster than one could say "breaking news", clearly smelling a moment in the spotlight and perhaps a nice raise. She crossed the rocky lot in several snappy high heeled strides and waved the cameraman closer with a perfectly manicured hand .

She glanced at her own hands self consciously and saw short, anxiety bitten fingernails and bony fingers, she had a small hangnail on her left pinky.

Her eyes slid back up to the screen where the woman was holding the object up as if it were the winning lottery ticket, so that it was clearly visible in the late morning sunlight.

Aerith's blood ran cold.

Slowly she closed her eyes and drew deep breaths through her mouth in an attempt to calm herself. She was jumping to conclusions, there _had_ to be another explanation.

But when she opened her eyes she could not deny the evidence as it sat looking mockingly harmless.

She pressed her face into the fluffy back of her sofa and emitted a single, overly antagonized shriek.

In the reporter's red fingered nailed grasp, a single strand of long, shiny, hair the color of quicksilver, fluttering in the faint breeze from it's place entangled in the coarse fibers of a large, jet black feather.

* * *

_**Please Review. : )**_


	2. Jubun No Ita

**_This is without a doubt the fastest update I have ever done. So often a story is a struggle to piece together but this one seems to come easily. I want to take this in a really different direction than most fics for this pairing seem to go. _**

**_I do not own Final Fantasy 7. If I did this would be a game or a movie and I would be writing from on top of a pile of money. : P_**

**_Songs for this chapter is "Hello Again" by the Lost Prophets._**

**_Henkan_**

**_Chapter 2: Jubun No Ita_**

* * *

Blood was really quite beautiful if one took the time to closely examine it.

He smiled, not a full out baring of the teeth, merely a fragile upturn of the corners of his mouth that would not even have been visible from certain angles, as he watched heavy streams of crimson flow down the inside of his wrist. They seemed to smile back at him as they glittered prettily in the sunlight, how, _incongruent_, that the very thing that tormented him would offer comfort in the end.

Suicide was for the weak, so wasn't it fitting? He certainly felt broken.

A peal of laughter emitted from his lips, the resonation foreign in his throat. Outward display of emotion and particularly light heartedness was something he had almost never allowed himself but a thought had struck him and in it he had found such a delicious irony that it had been the only appropriate response.

This would be his final act of defiance. Hojo and Shinra had wanted something strong, and utterly unbreakable, and perfect. They had taken him and changed what he was from every cell and outward in order to realize that vision. In so many ways he was freakish, _alien_ and yet...

There were parts that even the scientists hadn't been able to reach. They had failed to strengthen that part that was merely himself, with all of it's petty human frailties. The part that had enjoyed Genesis and Angeal's friendship, the part that had screamed for hours on end for someone, _anyone_, to care enough to help him, as he was subject to increasingly brutal experimentation. The part that he had tried to kill because it was the only thing that had forced him to walk the line between human and something else entirely.

The part that was suffering intensely now because he had just learned that yet again what he thought he knew was a lie.

He did not know how the woman had found him. Nor did he recall what happened immediately prior to or, in the aftermath of her visit, his memory was patchy at best.

But he knew all too well what had transpired and what he had learned as his mother had spoken to him. Not Jenova or some other theoretical being, but his flesh and blood mother. One that actually looked like him and had similar mannerisms and had asked nothing of him but forgiveness.

And in his last moments he was...absolutely furious with her. Because if she had not been so ambitious and merely exercised some foresight his life could have been so very different. He could have lived in a house with at least one parent and maybe siblings and gone to school and had friends, ones that didn't abruptly turn on him and then meet an untimely death at the age of twenty five.

Countless disasters could have been prevented. _All those people_ he had butchered. A scream lived and died in his chest. The worst part was that he was not sorry, because there was a considerable part of him that hated them even now. That took a twisted pleasure in what he had done.

And now after he had experienced a considerable degree of suffering and in turn wrought even more upon those who he had deemed responsible, she had decided to show up, _"Hello, I'm your mother. Let me tell you the whole sordid tale and explain to you why the reality you live in is false. By the way I hope you can forgive me for ignoring your existence for the last thirty or so odd years"_.

Perhaps he was paraphrasing slightly.

He wasn't quite sure how he ended up on a beach of all things, possessing no recollection of having walked, swam, or flown anywhere. Just that when he had...for lack of a better term, regained consciousness he had found himself in the sand, wearing clothing he didn't recall acquiring, armed with nothing other than what appeared to be a surgical scalpel.

He had found the knife terribly tempting, too tempting, he had succumbed to it's coercing whispers with such little resistance. Of course he knew that the inanimate object could not really make him do anything. Though he was surprised that the idea of putting a stop to the endless cycle of betrayal and vengeance that his life had become himself had come from anywhere within him, it was a choice he had so often treated with disdain.

Perhaps that was where the notion was conceived, that dark corner of his mind that played host the things that made even one such as himself cringe away in fear and disgust.

The first wave of dizziness washed over him then with all the gentleness of a tidal wave and he allowed his body to collapse back into the soft grey powder. It was very hot, burning pain stabbed at the cheek that was pressed into the grains of the rock sediment. How funny that he could feel that but not the cuts, he laughed again.

He did not allow himself to look down again, preferring not to calculate exactly how much blood he had shed, though he doubted his mind would be clear enough for that much longer.

Next came the cold, and he gasped as his altered body realized what was happening and threw his heart into overdrive in an attempt to compensate for the increasingly faint beats. He should have known that Hojo would have added a few fail safes, just in case. Though in this instance it worked in his favor, the increased pulse would only speed the rate of his blood loss. Clearly the scientist had not thought that bleeding to death would be an issue, he could see why, his body normally repaired itself so quickly. But after years in a coma at the bottom of a crater he was physically much weaker than would be typical and that particular gift seemed to have abandoned him for the time being.

It was starting to truly hurt now, his heart rate only continued to increase and the thing was hammering hard enough to make his limbs tremble. He gritted his teeth and anxiously anticipated the moment when he would finally pass out, damning Shinra and it's scientists to hell all the while. Any ordinary human would be fortunate enough to be dead by now. He coughed and tasted iron, thick heavy fluid filled his airways and cut them off, still more blood trailed over his chin.

His luck seemed to have finally turned because he did not have to wait long for the darkness to come.

* * *

Aerith really needed some air.

She paced the length of her living room one final time before she grabbed her keys up off the counter and quite literally bolted from the apartment.

She did not once consider at any length exactly _where_ she was headed, she merely let her feet carry her and found herself upon a familiar path to a particularly isolated patch of beach she frequented. Desperate to put distance between herself and what she had seen she broke into a run. She was hardly the picture of athletic fitness or inclination and her long unused leg muscles screamed in protest. For some reason that made her angry and she pushed her body harder, determined to not be limited by her own meager ability.

The solace of the waves, the elegant curl of the water, the sound it made as it crashed down upon itself. It almost brought back that peace of mind she had possessed before her death, how easily she had owned that state of being, how she had taken it for granted. She sighed heavily. Beneath her feet packed earth transitioned to sand and she forged a path close to the waterline, not wanting to battle the sinking of her heavy boots (the only article of clothing from the past that she had kept in her new life) into the dunes. The other obvious solution was to take off her shoes, but that would imply stopping and she would never outrun her fears that way.

On a sudden impulse that bore the intensity of a white hot flame she turned and ran to the ocean and threw herself gracelessly into the water, it was freezing. The cold numbed her extremities and fogged her mind, making it impossible to think very far beyond the realm of physical awareness, it was perfect. She leaned back and let the current take her where it would.

She drifted weightlessly for indeterminate amount of time, though it could not have been long, beneath her swells rose and fell and she felt them cary her inward and then the harsh curl of the breakers swept her up and flung her to shore. She looked around and realized that she was at least a few miles further south than when she began and that made her frown in annoyance given that she would have to make her way back in soaked clothing. Her skin already itched and burned in anticipation of the irritating scrape of wet cloth.

She hauled herself up and looked around, trying to get her bearings, she had never explored this far down the beach, though thankfully she knew the gist of how to get back. Unfortunately returning would entail one hell of a hike, the fastest thing to do would be to find another path up the short cliff face and follow the road home. The problem was that executing this plan of action included a walk up the beach and if the dunes were waist height near her house they were mountains here, at least a good five meters tall a piece, some as high as twelve.

Aerith told her self that she needed to just grit her teeth and do it, she couldn't spend the night out here. Resigned, she scrambled up the side of the first hill, a monster of a sand dune that stood taller than most of those surrounding it, hopefully at the top she would be able to see a route to follow that didn't involve climbing most of the way.

At the summit she stood and looked out over the endless sprawl of the beach, nothing but shades of light brown and charcoal grey for at least a half mile perhaps the occasional flash of sage green beach grass and...was that red?

What was that? She shielded her eyes from the sun with her hand and squinted hard in the direction of the brightly colored patch for a moment before her mouth fell a gape and her eyes widened. A person, someone was lying there and from the looks of it they were grievously injured, all around them blood dyed the sand a rich burgundy that was perversely pretty. The figure was decidedly not moving.

Without a second thought she took off in the direction of the hurt individual, that old familiar urge to heal filling her as she skidded down the face of the dune and ran clumsily, wondering how much of a factor time was.

She rounded another hill and looked again in the direction of her target, to confirm that she was indeed moving in the correct direction. Sand kicked up around her bare shins as she hurtled into the valley that her "patient" was currently occupying. She was so close, hopefully she was not too late, she kept her eyes trained upon her destination.

Ten feet away she stopped cold.

She knew she must have cried out in surprise, or maybe fear, because her throat was suddenly raw, but the sound only fell on her own deaf ears. For a moment she actually felt the blood drain away from her face and her vision fogged but she forced herself to remain conscious. Silently as she could she crept forward and confirmed her worst fears.

The scene was a bizarre one to be sure. A tall, thin man laying unconscious in the sand, bloody and ashen. There was nothing in the vicinity to indicate what exactly had happened, but the stained knife clenched loosely in his long fingers and the deep, pouring cuts on his wrists and throat told a story that made her want to cry.

There were so many things wrong, his face, though serene was chalk white. From beneath the translucent skin of his closed eyelids fat, shiny drops of red were beginning to leak like tears, more of the substance fell from between his smiling lips. Everything he was in contact with was thoroughly stained, the sand, his clothing, his long, silver hair.

For her part she remained frozen, struck at the most horrible moment by indecision. The man's name slipped from her lips in both a prayer and a curse, "Sephiroth".

* * *

**_How did I do? Review and let me know. : )_**

**_By the way "Jubun No Ita", translates roughly into "had enough" in english, this is, of course, in reference to Sephiroth, who finally just said "screw it" after finding out for the second time that everything he thought he knew was a lie._**


	3. Zeijakuna

_**This chapter seemed a little risky but I wanted to put them on a more even plane from the beginning. I don't like it when one or the other gets portrayed as super subservient, that's not the kind of relationship that encourages growth and the word "Henkan" really translates more or less to transformation which is what I want this story to be about.**_

_**I do not own Final Fantasy 7, if I did I would make a real life Sephiroth minus the general nut case problem, he would come with me everywhere and I could look at him whenever I needed to cheer up. XP**_

_**The song for this chapter is "Ugly" by The Exies.**_

_**Henkan**_

_**Chapter 3: Zeijakuna**_

* * *

She had a highly important and potentially life or death choice to make. She could do what any normal person would do when confronted with their murder, (_what a contradiction that thought was!). _She could avenge her own death and simply leave him there to die, he certainly appeared to be quite keen on doing just that, and then forget all about him and get on with her life.

Or she could break even in a different way, she could _make_ him live. She could flaunt the fact that despite all that had happened here she was, alive, and in the most technical sense _well_, something he had not been strong enough to accomplish. That no matter what he did he could never drag her down to his level, she would not resort to cruelty to settle a score.

She knew which would bring her the greatest satisfaction.

She knew which would more likely than not end with her death.

They were one and the same.

Aerith made up her mind.

First thing was first, she needed to get that scalpel away from him so he couldn't stab her if he woke up. Leaving Sephiroth in possession of sharp objects was nothing short of stupid, particularly given her experience with the matter. It occurred to her then that the suicide attempt might not be a one-time-incident, she would have to watch him relentlessly.

She sighed and finally closed the remaining meter between herself and the unnaturally pale body in the sand. With trembling fingers she reached out slowly, terrified that the slightest physical contact would send him jolting awake and in either anger or fear he would tear her through her comparatively frail person as if it were nothing.

The pad of her index finger touched him first and she nearly jerked away in surprise, he was _so cold_. Her thumb came next and at an agonizing pace she rested her hand against his and pried the implement out of it. He did not stir, did not even twitch at being moved, and as she stood and hurled the knife as far away from them as she could she began to doubt her ability to save him. Perhaps he was already too far gone, her power had been so much weaker since she had returned.

A moment later her resolve hardened. _No_, she had told herself she would try, she would not make up excuses for doing otherwise.

She took a deep breath and slipped a hand into the pocket of her olive colored shorts, her hand landed on her sole vial of mega-potion. She had bought the scant few ounces of liquid for the better part of a month's sallary from a young woman she was fairly certain was a rather prominent merchant on the black market, but the vendor had seemed to love her treasures so much that she had reminded her of Yuffie and so Aerith had just had to go buy _something. _In retrospect she may have been a bit too generous with the woman, her conscience had taken that particular moment to creep up on her and remind her of the difficulties that the older girl probably faced every day (being a female in a dangerous line of work) and before she knew it she was handing over two thousand gill.

If this didn't at least stabilize his condition she was screwed out of a rather large sum of money and he was just plain screwed.

Next she took out a pair of ethers to boost her own magic, one for when she was working on him and one for when he regained consciousness. She did not want to be defenseless if she found herself in proximity to one of his less than sane episodes. She wished not for the first time that she was more practiced with weapons, a thirty foot pole for example, or the enormous sword that usually accompanied her unlikely guest wherever he went, might be beneficial in such a situation.

She knelt at his side and laid the crystal flasks in the sand beside her. Taking a fraction of the precious little time they had to mentally prepare herself for the task at hand.

It was the most inappropriate time to notice but she couldn't quite help it and her mouth quirked upward briefly as she took in the man's strange attire. The black dress pants, though long enough appeared to be nearly twice as large around and he was positively drowning in the white button down shirt. Perhaps it was just her state of anxiety but right then she would have sworn that there was nothing funnier in the world than the sight of Sephiroth in a too big Turk uniform.

He had lost weight she observed, the man from her memory was quite lean, verging on slight even, but not this refugee skinny state she was seeing now. Through the deep-v left by the standard issue turk shirt, which clearly displayed a fair amount of his upper torso, she could see his skeletal structure easily beneath the remaining layers of atrophying muscle and his opaque white skin. It was the same story with his exposed forearms and the sliver of lower stomach that had been left bare by the twisted ivory fabric.

A sort of morbid fascination over took her judgement and she picked up one of his large hands curiously, her heart fluttered rapidly and her mind blared red alert and screamed for her to cease her examination and get on with it, but she ignored her more natural reactions in favor of seizing the opportunity presented to her.

Her eyes traced the lacework of veins and long, elegant bones that criss crossed beneath it's snowy casing and she wondered if anyone other than the scientists that had made him had ever looked this closely and lived to tell the tale. She flipped the appendage over delicately, afraid of further worsening the self inflicted lesion on the other side. A deep ugly gash faced her and she flinched when more blood made it's way out and splattered across her exposed lower thighs. She noticed that the color was off and when she took a drop on her fingertip and studied it she noticed whorls of sickly green mixed in with the more normal ruby red. He was _bleeding mako_.

A strong urge to offer comfort came forward as it did when she was in proximity to any creature in need and it was only the knowledge of exactly _what_ she was dealing with that kept her from pressing a kiss to his forehead and whispering words of reassurance as she had with so many friends and sick children.

Without any further ado she set his arm back down, face up in the sand, returned her attention to her supplies, and took up the first ether. She opened the tiny container carefully and drank the whole thing in one gulp, grimacing at the saccharine taste.

At least the concoction was effective, almost immediately she felt something warm seep into her chest and spread out. She closed her eyes and sighed, healing magic already thrumming through her body like a pulse, she always felt stronger when these moments came, even before she had all but lost her gift.

Aerith took conscious effort to snap herself back to reality and now the mega-potion was in her hand and she put painstaking care into removing the lid in such a manner that a single drop would not be spilt. In the same agonizing manner carefully supported his head with one hand and used the other to lower the vial to his lips.

That was until she realized that his mouth was closed and she would have to open it herself in order to get the solution into his system. Someone up there have _really_ hated her. She huffed a martyred little sound and quickly recapped the potion and slowly reached for his jaw. She tugged gently but it didn't move._ Oh planet_, on second though he should just wake up and kill her now so she wouldn't have to die of embarrassment, she thought as she gingerly placed her thumb on his bloody lower lip, the only position that gave her any better leverage.

She tried again and this time his mouth opened easily, she cringed. She hadn't really given any thought as to _why_ there was blood leaking from his mouth, being to absorbed in the general shock of the situation and now she was sitting there with her hand drenched in the stuff to the wrist because crimson liquid had come pouring out the second there was any means of escape.

She went about trying to wipe the stuff off in the sand, perhaps a little frantically, the gross factor fully setting in and she thought bitterly that she should have used his hair as a towel, for old time's sake.

A tiny grunting sound reached her ears and she turned around just in time to see Sephiroth cringe violently over onto his side and begin coughing with an intensity typical of later stage consumption victims. He hacked relentlessly and with each round more and more blood came up until she was sure between his own handy work and the internal damage there could not possibly be anything left for him to shed.

But still more fluid continued to come, up to the moment when he finally took a desperate gasp and crumpeled limply back to the ground. Throughout the whole incident he never once opened his eyes or acknowledged her presence and with cautious optimism she drew the conclusion that he hadn't noticed her.

Silently, she edged back to his side again and used a hand on his raised shoulder to ease him onto his back. She made to retrieve the tiny crystalline container that she had dropped in the sand in her surprise less than a meter away.

She yelped and very nearly jumped out of her own skin when a very cool, very shaky, hand seized her other forearm and tugged on it hard.

A glance over her shoulder told her that he was indeed awake and currently staring at her, his strange eyes fixated upon her with a fierceness not even the verge of death could take from him.

He did not ask how she was alive, or what happened, or even why she was helping him. His lips moved soundlessly for a couple of seconds before he was able to rasp out, "Don't", in a weaker voice than she would have ever believed him capable of, his tone laden with urgency.

She shook her head at him and wordlessly eased the hand off of her arm. She slipped her own freed hand beneath his head and cradled his his skull in her palm again, her other one located the meg- potion in her third attempt to give him the concoction.

His eyes went wide and he shook his head furiously, "No" he told her with as much of an air of inflexibility as a half conscious person could manage.

She continued to carefully ignore him and opened the container.

He continued to protest incoherently and she realized that in his case appearing alert and being alert were two very different things. "Wrong", he mumbled, "Leave me alone...Better this way".

She held the vial up to his mouth, still refusing to afford his one sided argument any verbal recognition.

"_Please!_" he cried out, and she faltered at the plea. This was not what she had expected, he wasn't being friendly by any stretch of the imagination, but this was not the brutal attempt on her life she had been anticipating either. It was so much worse, it made her pity him.

That was a problem, it was even harder to ignore him when he was so visibly upset, harder to pretend he was just another sick stranger. Normal people didn't panic like this.

Her lips thinned into a hard line and she tipped the flask back in one fluid motion and poured it into his mouth. Anticipating his next moved she clamped a hand over his lips, all trepidation forgotten, and forced him to swallow. He was too weak to fight back and she could see the agony that realization caused him as it passed over his face, she tried very hard not to enjoy it.

He said nothing after that just looked at her with accusation in his eyes that she matched until his heavy eyelids slipped down and he fell into a more natural sleep, that was good, sleeping would let the healing magic work without interference.

Now all she had to do was watch him and take the second Ether when he seemed to be waking up. She perched herself on the stretch of sand dune directly above him and waited.

* * *

_**Please review, anyone who writes could tell you how much it means to an author. I just got favorited by an author I really like a few days ago and it was definitely very exciting.**_

_**If you feel inclined review or message me and tell me what you would do if you owned Final Fantasy. : )**_


	4. Tsuki Atama

**_I do not own Final Fantasy 7, if I did I would pay to be as skinny and gorgeous as all of the characters._**

**_I didn't put this section of the story in just to be funny, I put it to show that Aerith isn't going to be a complete chronic martyr in my plot. And that they naturally rile each other. I'm so sick of reading Aerith as a helpless little girl who doesn't do anything but gets told she is great because her heart was in the right place. She seems like a pretty tough person to me, I think she would accomplish what she wanted to even if she had to get really creative about it. _**

**_The song for this chapter is "The Invisible Wall" by the Gazette._**

* * *

She did not mean to fall asleep, in fact she didn't even realize that she had until she woke up to a full moon.

Immediately she sat up and looked to the sandy valley below her, Sephiroth wasn't there.

_Damn it_, she cursed, she seemed to be doing a lot of that lately. Her intensely frazzled hair flopped in front of her face, mostly obscuring her vision, further disorienting her as she raced to the crest of the hill, frantically looking around. This made her very uncomfortable, not knowing exactly where he was, that made it all too easy for him sneak up on her.

"Hello!" she shouted at the surrounding terrain.

"You're too loud", a low voice murmured.

Sephiroth was sitting on the other side of the dune, his knees tucked up to his chest and his long arms wrapped loosely around them as if he were trying to be as small as possible. Her cheeks warmed with embarrassment, of course she would just have to lose her head in front of the most unfailingly calculating person in the world.

But not really, a voice crept into her head and she recalled his half dead body collapsed on the ground, was that only a few short hours ago? He seemed fine now, not quite his...she was hesitant to use the term... normal self but certainly close enough.

He must have picked up on her chagrin because his still stained mouth turned upward into a wry little smirk she would have loved to slap off of his face.

"It's dark" she defended herself sharply.

"The moon is out", was that a laugh?

"I suppose you can see in the dark" she challenged.

"Perhaps", he was definitely mocking her.

"Has anyone ever told you that you're a royal pain in the ass?"

"Many times".

She sighed and decided that she would try and get some answers while she had him talking, "Care to explain what happened?"

His face went blank and he seemed to retreat within himself, "No", he snapped.

Her temper flared at that, "I saved your life! The very least you could do is tell me why I had to do it in the first place".

He snorted derisively, "Had to? Forgive me but I don't recall pointing a gun at your head".

"You would have been to busy pointing it at your own".

His demeanor cooled many degrees, "What happened to my knife?".

This was definitely not what she wanted to be discussing, just knowing that he wanted the thing back was enough to make that primal, instinctive part of her want to run away screaming.

"I threw it away"she told him, instead.

He blinked, "Why?".

Now she took an opportunity to laugh at him, "Getting run through once is quite enough for me".

He raised his silver eyebrows, "So that's what this is about".

"What?" she spluttered angrily.

He sighed heavily, "I'll make you a deal. Explain why you helped me and I will tell you what you want to know".

"How kind of you", she retorted.

His large, green eyes narrowed, "Do you want me to tell you or not?". His expression read clearly that it was not an idle threat, she supposed the Great Sephiroth did not suffer indecision.

What was the real harm in telling him? Aerith was if nothing else, comitted to living out her ideals to the fullest extent possible and as it stood she believed that he had a right to at least know why his death was abruptly interrupted. If he chose to use it against her so be it, this was the point of letting him live, she would not manipulate as he had.

"I'm not sure exactly why I helped you, at first I just sort of froze up but...", she trailed off.

"But?", he prompted.

"I wanted to prove something, to myself, to everybody" she paused and thought how best to say this, "To you, that I was the stronger one. I was faced with a situation similar to yours in Nibelheim you know, faced with the one responsible for my misfortunes. But I still made myself do the right thing, I helped you as I would anyone else, I didn't let myself be like you". she finished with her voice barely above a whisper.

He didn't pick at her motives or phrasing, just nodded and said "I used to be a lot like you", he frowned, "Or at least I thought I was".

He did nothing at all to further clarify, just sat like a child would in the sand and watched the ocean.

After a long moment he spoke again, "I thought perhaps you might have been seeking to punish me, forcing me to live on when it seemed ah-quite clear that I had no desire to do so".

She looked at her feet to shield herself from his inhuman, knowing eyes, now she felt guilty.

She realized that his words had served a dual purpose, not only acknowledging that he was satisfied with her answer but willing enough to offer his own, inside she laughed, always efficient those SOLDIERS.

"Will you explain how you got...that way?", she asked gently, afraid that the smallest wrong move would send him back into silence.

He hesitated, and stared at her directly in the eyes, carefully, like he was looking for something. The gaze though innocent enough on the surface, paralyzed her and she stood caught as a deer in the headlights would be.

It was then that she saw it for the first time.

Aerith drew a shaky breath.

He was _very_ attractive, as in shouldn't even be allowed attractive. Even too thin, paled, and bloody he was otherworldly handsome. His face was structured with almost delicate features that were smooth and perfectly symmetrical, the skin flawless. His jaw, by contrast was carved sharp and elegant, even proud. His hair still stood as the strangest natural color she had ever seen, the long strands ranged anywhere from a shiny starlight silver to charcoal gray and curiously enough it flattered him. And the eyes, large and feline in shape with slitted pupils to match, in her brief examinations during her past encounters she had classified the color as bright green. Now that she was able to examine more closely she saw that jade would be a more accurate term, the very center surrounding the pupil was a heavily pigmented emerald but the edges faded to a more natural light blue.

"I want to begin by saying that my memory is faulty," he began, startling her from her reverie and she sat down not beside him per say but within reasonable proximity and fussed with her hair so he would not see her blush, "and that for the time being you should not take my accounts as truths".

She nodded, trying not to contemplate the way that she had been ogling the man that had killed her. He continued to fix her with a stare both inquisitive and guarded, if he new of the ludicrous thoughts that had just possessed her he did not do anything to indicate so. That bizarre jolt of attraction had made her wonder though, was he why she had been sent back? Was she meant to save him? Her? The little nobody from the slums of Midigar? The flower vendor. How could the planet possibly expect her to help someone like him? The thought made her head spin.

He was staring at her oddly and she realized that she had been off in her own world for several long moments, she forced herself to concentrate on the present.

Her eyebrows elevated, "Amnesia?" she inquired, it seemed like a reasonable guess.

He shook his head and spread his hands out before himself and studied them as if they were of great interest, she noticed the shiny, ribbed scars that now decorated the insides of his wrists, she suspected that he was sporting a matching one on his neck. Aerith rubbed at her own throat in involuntary sympathy, that one had to have hurt.

"No, I assure you that I am quite aware of what I am and why. These are more like black out periods", he shared bitterly, was it her imagination or did he sound...sad? How was it that everytime he spoke she found herself increasingly pitying him.

"From what I can work out Shinra had me extracted from the Northern Crater, I wasn't dead you see, after my", he paused and contemplated, "_little scuffle_ with your friends I went into a coma".

"I know", she agreed quietly, "I kept waiting for either you or one of them to enter the life stream but no one ever did, I guess I got to be the casualty", no reason to spare his feelings or dance around what had happened, it wasn't as if he actually _felt bad about it_ or anything.

Except he looked away from her and she saw his shoulders hunch fractionally, the action reminded her so much of a shamed Cloud that her mouth fell open and the urge to close the distance between them and comfort him ached in her limbs. She folded her arms tightly across her body and reminded herself that he was not and never would be a friend with which she could share such familiarity. It wasn't so much _him_ as the knowledge that a living something was hurting, it was like she was_ programmed_ to react that way.

She heard him sigh quietly, "The turks came in a helicopter and took me into custody, I never once saw any of them, I was kept in a cargo hold away from the cockpit. I suppose they expected me to hijack them at any moment but I was to weak" she noticed how his lips curled to a snarl around the word, as if it were the most deplorable of poisons, "to even try. I would guess the most intimidating thing I did was shout in my sleep, I've always had strange dreams." he laughed hollowly again and she was beginning to notice that he wasn't really being unpleasant, he had a habit of doing that whenever an uncomfortable topic was broached.

She was unable to form an appropriate reply, what should she say, I'm sorry? Sephiroth did not want anyone's pity and she was unsure if she was willing to give it.

Still the question nagged at her, how often was he misread? Was he even cruel and arrogant at all, or just horribly inept at dealing with people? He had been raised in a lab, that much she already knew, certainly one could not expect the level of social grace that a normal, healthy individual would possess?

He spoke again and now she paid more careful attention to his tone, the tiny expressions that played over his face, searching for what he meant in what he said.

"I thought I was going to be handed over to President Shinra and the remaining SOLDIERS, did you know that there's a hundred thousand gill prize on my head?", a genuine laugh, he had a morbid sense of humor, "However I was turned over to the science department and from there it gets vague. There were needles and pain and lights, I felt just like a kid again.".

Did he have to be so casual about it? It was worse than if he had broken down in tears, which she certainly could not imagine him ever doing, could he even cry? Didn't that require a heart?

His mouth moved again and for a moment it looked as if he were about to make some sort of revelation but before the words could make it out he cut him self off "Eventually I regained my health and escaped. As for the scene you encountered I merely decided that a different course of action would be beneficial".

His voice was monotone and robotic and his articulation more militant with each word.

"You're a pathetic liar", she hissed harshly.

His expression was still stony, "On the contrary, I am an excellent liar. I simply do not feel as though you deserve the trouble it would take me to deceive you".

Aerith scoweled indignantly, "I had forgotten how arrogant you were, need I remind you who saved who?", she demanded.

"Whom" he corrected blandly.

She blinked, "Excuse me?".

"It's who saved whom", he reiterated.

She laughed, not in real mirth but for the sole purpose of being as scathing as it was in her character to be, had the situation been different she might have been able to register it as funny. The comment after all was childish, petty words on the lips of a hero.

"Surely someone as outstanding as yourself has more important things to do than correct the grammar of a nobody like me", she mocked.

He sneered back and his brow furrowed, "At least when I dealt harm to you I didn't make it personal".

He had a way of knowing exactly what to say to shut her up.

Not for long though, she quickly formed a response to fire back at him, "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard".

"Oh?", he questioned.

"There is nothing impersonal about taking a life. You of all people must know that, did you ever kill for any other reason?", she replied.

"Don't kid yourself little girl, I was high general in the Wutai war when you were running around your parent's back yard", he growled.

She didn't bother telling him that she had never had a yard, or multiple care givers.

She snorted, "Please. You didn't decide to fight them, you were following orders. Stop trying to scare me".

He shot her a small, dry, insincere smile, "Touche'"

"Why do you do that?", she asked suddenly.

"What?".

"Laugh when something upsets you", she specified.

"I was not upset", he lied again, his voice very, very dull.

She rolled her eyes, "I should have known that you of all people would have a macho complex".

"Pardon?", was he actually offended?

"You and all of the other SOLDIERS, always so worried about looking tough. I thought you might be different, you're so famous anyway...", she trailed off when she realized that her words could have been taken the wrong way, she was not and never had been a fan. Even when she was little and she couldn't go anywhere without seeing his picture, he and the rest of the infamous trio had always been too much icons of war for her to admire them.

"My lack of desire to disclose my every slightest emotion certainly does not mean that I must be fixated upon my own sense of masculinity. Why do you insist on simplifying me to a series of base desires? _I am not an animal_", he even raised his perfectly flat voice a little at the end of the phrase. That surprised her, had she actually touched a nerve? In fact, she seemed to be prodding quite a few nerves. It was like throwing darts blindfolded, she couldn't seem to control her mouth but she was saying all of the things that could make him talk.

"Are you convincing me or yourself?".

"How did your little friends ever stand you?", he bit out sharply.

Her eyes narrowed, "I'm not normally like this", she said quietly.

"I would hope not", he replied.

She wanted to scream, as if _Sephiroth_ had any right to scold her for not being nice. The man was a total hypocrite and it irked her tenfold more because she was certain that if she said anything he would find a way to be justified. Bad upbringing be damned, he was too aggravating to not have been told how he affected other people at least once in his life. Clearly treating people decently was below the Great Hero of the War in Wutai.

She half hoped and half dreaded that he would speak again. Hoped because she was itching to give him a piece of her mind, dreaded because he would probably just turn it back on her. But the long seconds dragged on and the only thing that told her time was passing at all was the changing position of the moon. Her limbs and eyes grew leaden and despite her best effort weariness scattered the thoughts inside her head to a jumbled series of images that meant nothing.

When the sun finally began to rise at her back willpower failed her and she closed her eyes against the pink and crimson sky.


End file.
